Sound intermittently non functional, misc other issues

I have had my Droid 2 Global for about a year and a half. The issues I am having have been recurring for several months now, and about two weeks ago, I was sent a warranty replacement, so the phone in my possession is supposedly as-good-as-new. I do use the Backup Assistant to back up my contacts and settings, but install applications fresh. Now, in spite of the new phone, the issues I am having are beginning to recur. I worry that it is perhaps a software issue/somehow tied to my Backup Assistant settings, but do not know what to do.

The issues I am having are as follows:
*The sound intermittently does not work. This happens at random, and covers notification and ringtone sounds, as well as in-call volume and media sounds. I have my alarm settings set up to play the alarm even in silent mode, but this morning even though the phone was not in silent, the alarm did not play a sound nor did the phone vibrate as it usually does.
*The camera intermittently does not work. Sometimes the camera app simply crashes, but even if I can load it and snap a photo, I cannot access the photos through the gallery/camera apps. If I retrieve the files directly from the simcard they seem to be intact.
*I get random ads in my notification bar. I am not sure if this is related, but I started noticing them around the same time as all of these other issues began a few months ago.

The only thing I can think of is that I have some kind of weird virus or something, but I am not familiar with maintaining the android OS to fix this sort of thing. The only thing I can think of to do is to hard reset the phone and forgo the Backup Assistant/replug my contacts, settings, etc all by hand. Any other thoughts?

It's just likely VZ's tweaks messing with the phone. You may have to live with it. You can try backing up everything with Google/Gmail and see if that helps. Otherwise rooting so that you can freeze the bloatware or flash a Rom may be what it takes.

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